Editorial. 211 



image as contrasted to an objective. But from a psychical 

 point of view one is quite as objective as the other, while, if the 

 distinction is a physiological one, it is obvious that there are at 

 least two other varieties of "subjective images" possible, (i) 

 those due to disturbances in the eye ball, (2) those due to irrita- 

 tion of the tectum. Perhaps, however, the last two cannot be 

 physiologically distinguished and may grouped as tecto-retinal. 

 It is, however, apparently true that the tone of the cortical 

 image is different from that superposed on the infracortical pro- 

 cesses described. (It is not necessary to do more than indicate 

 that besides the direct associational tracts here alluded to there 

 are indirect connections between the optic lobes adequate to ex- 

 plain the dissimilarity between the vestigeal and the objectively- 

 occasioned visual process in the cortex.) Much ambiguity still 

 prevails in the attempt to discriminate different types of visual 

 reproduction. There is hardly a question that involuntary re- 

 production may be either vestigeal or hallucinatory ( tecto-ret- 

 inal ). In the latter case the actual colors and forms are as 

 really presented as if an object were before the eye. On the 

 other hand, it is very doubtful if voluntary reproduction is ever 

 other than vestigeal. The conscious differences in tone between 

 the two forms of sense perception are not, as often claimed, 

 matters of degree — they are differences of kind or tone. How 

 this difference arises it is needless to enquire; it may be that, 

 besides the visual impression directly formed, the profound dis- 

 turbances and coordinations in the mesencephalon during vision 

 produce a great variety of modifications of consciousness. It 

 would be strange if it were otherwise. 



Ordinarily cortical vision involves a vast system of inter- 

 actions between different centres, giving rise to perception and 

 higher mental acts. Perception, for example, must not be 

 thought of as a definite category of coordinate processes. 

 Rather, the act may be very simple or highly complex, depend- 

 ing on the number of vestiges coordinated in it. The higher 

 processes are higher not because of this kind of complexity 

 but because of a greater degree of kinesodic participation, i. e. 

 because there is a coordination of higher and lower centres in- 



